Category Archives: imago dei

Kuyper, Common Grace, 1.21

26 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by in Abraham Kuyper, Image of God, imago dei

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The previous post may be found here.

Chapter 21 continues with the consideration of Adam’s original state and the image of God. The first half of the chapter concerns the question of what is meant by Adam’s original righteousness, holiness, and wisdom. First, Adam was simply created in a right relationship with God: he was thus righteous. Adam did not need to acquire this right standing, he was created in this place.

Since Adam was in a right standing with God, Adam by nature of the arrangement must possess original holiness. If had any sense been unholy, that right relationship could not exist (“Strive for … holiness without which no one will see God.” Heb. 12:14.) Our current holiness is of a different nature in this life, for our holiness is in a mediator. We are counted righteous in Christ. In the case of Adam, he stood in holiness by nature of his having been created without sin. 

This brings Kuyper to Adam’s wisdom. Here Kuyper looks to 1 Corinthians 1:30 where Christ is our righteousness, our holiness, and our wisdom (the final element in  1:30 is redemption, which would be unnecessary for Adam). 

Although not developed, Kuyper’s implicit argument seems to be that if we must received righteousness, holiness, and wisdom from Christ, then the triad must have been present with Adam (and in some manner lost). 

As to wisdom, he emphasizes that we know – we do not merely feel—the truth. When Satan comes to Eve, he comes to her with deceptive reasons. He compares these to pearls on a string which all must be present together: wisdom, righteousness, holiness. 

This leads to the question of the image of God: If these three make up the image of God, then when Adam fell whence the image? But we if make these things the image, then there is man and the image is something added to him (because we are human beings after the fall, even if we lack the original righteousness, holiness, and wisdom). 

The Roman theologian solve this problem by dividing between the image and likeness: Image is the essence of a man; likeness, an addition of righteousness, holiness, and wisdom. The likeness then acted like a bridal upon the image. 

Kuyper does not find that argument persuasive. Rather, he speaks of the essence of Adam as the image of God in that by essence, Adam was able to reflect God. There is also the actual display of those qualities in Adam.

This capacity to reflect is inherent in all that we are as human beings, including in the fact being physical creatures. We are organically body and soul; death is the grotesque sundering of the two. Our body is the means by which the spiritual reality of reflecting God physically displays. 

But our capacities for thought, memory, appreciation of joy and beauty go beyond being a bare animal, “and can be explained only on the basis of the reflection of the things of God in our human being.”

Human beings thus exist for God and God’s glory. From this, Kuyper argues to immorality: Since we exist for God and not ourselves: to display the glory of God, the individual (and not merely the race) must always exist, lest God lose that glory.

He does not argue the point further, but our continued existence after death in an eternal state fulfills that point. Even those who are lost display his glory in God’s patient endurance of their rebellion, in the display of his wrath. And a point made by Bray, God’s love continuing as such even toward the lost in that he refuses to utterly destroy even the Devil.

Edward Polhill, A View of Some Divine Truths, 1.2 (God’s self-disclosure)

17 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Edward Polhill, Image of God, imago dei, Theology, Uncategorized

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This is an abridgment with notes on Edward Polhill’s first chapter of A View of Some Divine Truths. The previous notes on this chapter may be found here

God’s self-existence and self-sufficiency in all things means that God has no need of his creation. That such a great being would invade his own privacy, as one theologian one-time expressed it is a matter of “supereffluent goodness:

That such an infinite All-sufficient One should manifest himself, must needs be an act of admirable supereffluent goodness, such as indeed could not be done without stooping down below his own infinity, that he might gratify our weakness.

We have no words which could reach or describe God, who is so far above our ability and our reason. And yet God has disclosed himself to us in the Scripture and in the Incarnation:

His name is above every name; nevertheless, he humbles himself to appear to our minds in a scripture image; nay, to our very senses in the body of nature, that we might clasp the arms of faith and love about the holy beams, and in their light and warmth ascend up to their great Original, the Father of lights and mercies.

God hath manifested himself many ways.

He set up the material world, that he, though an invisible spirit, might render himself visible therein: all the hosts of creatures wear his colours.

The evidence of God’s self-disclosure in nature is a matter admitted in various ways by pagans and philosophers. And what is it that they have observed:

Almighty power hath printed itself upon the world, nay, upon every little particle of it: all the creatures came out of nothing, and between that and being is a very vast gulf.

First, creation shows infinite power:

It was an infinite power, which filled it up and fetched over the creatures into being; it was an Almighty word, which made the creatures at an infinite distance hear and rise up out of nothing. The old axiom, ex nihilo nihil fit, is nature’s limit and a true measure of finite powers; but when, as in the creation, nature overflows the banks, when nullity itself springs up and runs over into a world, we are sure that the moving power was an infinite one.

Second, creation displays God’s infinite wisdom:

And as infinite power appears in the being of the creatures, so doth infinite wisdom in their orders and harmonies. The curious ideas and congruities, which before were latent in the Divine breast, are limned out upon outward and sensible things, standing in delicate order and proportion before our eyes. The world is a system of contraries made up into one body, in which disagreeing natures conspire together for the common good: each creature keeps its station, and all the parts of nature hang one upon another in a sweet confederacy.

Here Polhill makes note of natural agency:

Mere natural agents operate towards their ends, as if they were masters of reason, and hit their proper mark, as if they had a providence within them. Such things as these teach us to conclude with Zeno, that λόγος, reason, is the great artist which made all; and to break out with the Psalmist, O Lord, how manifold are thy works? in wisdom hast thou made them all.

Creation also shows God’s goodness, which is a thing even pagans could observe:

And as the two former attributes show forth themselves in the creatures, so also doth infinite goodness: all the drops and measures of goodness in the creature lead us to that infinite goodness which is the fountain and spring of all. Pherecydes the philosopher, said, that Jupiter first transformed himself into love, and then made the world; he, who is essential love, so framed it, that goodness appears every where: it shines in the sun, breathes in the air, flows in the sea, and springs in the earth; it is reason in men, sense in brutes, life in plants, and more than mere being in the least particles of matter.

There is a belief held by the Manichees – and if you would like a modern version think about the “force” in Star Wars in there are two equally powerful principles – that the world is ruled by two equally power gods. Polhill will have none of this and points goodness of God displayed in creation:

The Manichees, who would have had their name from pouring out of manna, did brook their true name from mania, that is, madness, in denying so excellent a world to be from the good God. The light in their eyes, breath in their nostrils, bread in their mouths, and all the good creatures round about them, were pregnant refutations of their senseless heresy: the prints of goodness everywhere extant in nature, shew the good hand which framed all.

And the capstone of creation: the creation of man in the image of God:

In the making of man in his original integrity, there was yet a greater manifestation. In other creatures there were the footsteps of God, but in man there was his image; a natural image in the very make of his soul, in the essential faculties of reason and will, upon which were derived more noble and divine prints of a Deity than upon all the world besides.

The moral uprightness of original man could see this display of God’s glory in all things:

And in that natural image there was seated a moral one, standing in that perfect knowledge and righteousness, in which more of the beauty and glory of God did shine forth, than in the very essence of the soul itself. His mind was a pure lamp of knowledge, without any mists or dark shades about it, his will a mirror of sanctity and rectitude without any spot in it; and, as an accession to the two former images, there was an image of God’s sovereignty in him, he was made Lord over the brutal world; without, the beasts were in perfect subjection to him: and within, the affections. Now to such an excellent creature, in his primitive glory, with a reason in its just ἀκμὴor full stature, the world was a very rare spectacle; the stamps and signatures upon the creatures looked very fresh to his pure paradisical eyes: from within and from without he was filled with illustrious rays of a Deity: he saw God everywhere: within, in the frame and divine furniture of his soul, and without, in the creatures and the impresses of goodness on them: he heard God everywhere; in his own breast in the voice of a clear unveiled reason, and abroad in the high language and dialect of nature. All was in splendour; the world shone as an outward temple, and his heart was in lustre like an oracle or inward sanctuary; everything in both spake to God’s honour. Such an excellent appearance as this was worthy of a Sabbath to celebrate the praises of the Creator in.

Why then do we not see God’s glory so plainly? What has made it difficult to see this expression of God:

But, alas! sin soon entered, and cast a vail upon this manifestation; on the world there fell a curse, which pressed it into groans and travailing pains of vanity; the earth had its thistles, the heavens their spots and malignant influences, all was out of tune, and jarring into confusion.

At this point, Polhill takes up a very contested issue: in what way precisely did the Fall effect man:

In man all the images of God more or less suffered; the orient reason was miserably clouded, the holy rectitude utterly lost: without, the beasts turned rebels; and within, the affections.

Polhill lists irrationality, behavior and affection: the mind, the heart and the hands were all disordered. At point, God then turned to a new means of disclosing himself to man. If man could not accurately read God’s goodness in creation, God would give a new disclosure, first in the law; then in Christ. In this section of the essay, Polhill is generally tracking the argument of the first five chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans: God was manifest in creation but human beings became disordered in their reason, affections and behavior. Paul then turns to the law as evidence of God’s working and of Christ who redeemed.

First, God makes a promise of the redemption

Nevertheless God, who is unwearied in goodness, would further manifest himself. Promises of the Messiah, and of grace in him, brake forth unto lapsed man; and as appendants thereof, there came forth sacrifices and other types to be figures of heavenly things, and a kind of Astrolabe to the pious Jews, that by earthly things they might ascend unto celestial.

This would be the first evangel in Genesis 3:15:

Genesis 3:15 (NASB95)

15            And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

The sacrifices and other types were being developed in even before Moses and the law; such as Abraham offering Isaac.  Next comes the law of Moses

Also the moral law was given forth by God: the spiritual tables being broken, material ones were made; holiness and righteousness being by the fall driven out of their proper place, the heart of man, were set forth in letters and words in the decalogue.

Notice how he explains the works of the law; it works in a way to undo the effects of the Fall in disordering reason, affections and actions. First, it restore reason:

This was so glorious a manifestation, that the Rabbins say that mountains of sense hang upon every iota of it. The Psalmist, in the 19th Psalm, having set forth how the sun and heavens shew forth God’s glory, raises up his discourse to the perfect law, which, as it enlightens the inward man

It directs actions:

, is a brighter luminary than the sun which shines to sense; and, as it comprises all duties within itself, is a nobler circle in morality than the heavens, which environ all other bodies, are in nature.

Then it restores right affection, being designed to bring about love of God and man:

“The commandment,” saith the Psalmist, “is exceeding broad,” (Ps. 119:96🙂 it is an ocean of sanctity and equity, such as human reason, the soul and measure of civil laws, cannot search to the bottom. Love to God and our neighbour is the centre of it; and as many right lines as may be drawn thither, so many are the duties of it. Whatsoever it be that makes up the just posture of man towards his Maker or fellow-creatures, is required therein.

It surpasses all human laws:

Human laws are δίκαια κινούμενα, moveable orders, such as turn about with time; but the moral law is by its intrinsical rectitude so immortalized, that, as long as God is God, and man, it cannot be altered.

Then the final revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth:

After all these manifestations, God revealed himself to the world in and by Jesus Christ; this is the last and greatest appearance of all.

Jesus was able to display God in a way that no mere creature could:

In the inferior creatures there is a footstep of God, but not his image; in man there is his image, but a finite, a created one: but Jesus Christ is the infinite uncreated image of God. The nearer any creature doth in its perfections approach to God, the more it reveals him; life shews forth more of him than mere being, sense than life, reason than all the rest: but, oh! what a spectacle hath faith, when a human nature shall be taken into the person of God, when the fulness of the Godhead shall dwell in a creature hypostatically!

This display of God in the Incarnation was to display the Creator and show his power, wisdom and goodness; just as the original creation had displayed God before Man’s sin marred his ability to see. Moreover, this display of God encompasses the written revelation of God by being a living word:

Here the eternal word which framed the world was made flesh; the infinite wisdom which lighted up reason in man assumed a humanity; never was God so in man, never was man so united to God, as in this wonderful dispensation; more glory breaks forth from hence, than from all the creation. We have here the centre of the promises, the substance of the types and shadows, the complement of the moral law, and holiness and righteousness, not in letters and syllables, but living, breathing, walking, practically exemplified in the human nature of Jesus Christ.

 

Theophilus of Antioch, on the Creation Accounts

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Ante-Nicene, Anthropology, Creation, Creation, Image of God, imago dei, Uncategorized

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Theophilus next commences with a  long discussion of the Creation. It is interesting that he takes Creation as the great distinction between the pagan and Christian worldviews. Interestingly, Peter Jones makes exactly the same distinction as the “bedrock” for the difference between Christianity and other positions:

In either case, here we reach rock bottom. Either the transcendent Creator— one God in the unending interpersonal life and love of the Trinity— is at the origin of everything created and sustains it all, or the universe itself, in all its seeming variety, is all there is. And in either case, whether we worship nature or the Maker of nature, we are dealing with a statement of faith and an expression of worship. We cannot step out of the universe to find an objective point of view. We must make a faith decision between these two alternatives— and there are only two. If God and nature make up reality, then all is two, and everything is either Creator or creature. On the other hand, if the universe is all there is, then all is one.

This choice is exemplified in the stark separation between two points of perspective: that of the Bible, and that of Camille Paglia, a contemporary philosopher. The Bible begins by saying: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth [i.e., nature]” (Gen 1: 1). Paglia begins her book Sexual Personae very differently: “In the beginning was Nature.” [footnote] These two views of reality have always existed, but because we have lived for centuries in a Christian environment, the reemerging conflict startles us. Paglia wrote what she did in conscious opposition to the perspective on the world put forth in Genesis. Christian thinking starts not with Paglia’s view of existence but with that of the Bible.

Robert Sokolowski, a professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America, puts it this way:

Christian theology is differentiated from pagan religious and philosophical reflections primarily by the introduction of a new distinction, the distinction between the world, understood as possibly not having existed, and God, understood as possibly being all that there is, with no diminution of goodness or greatness.

Jones, Peter (2015-06-24). The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat (Kindle Locations 252-267). Kirkdale Press. Kindle Edition.

In making this argument, Theophilus relies heavily upon the text of Scripture, quoting out long sections of Genesis as argument. A few observations about Theophilus’ rendition of the creation account. First, he gives the rationale for the creation of human beings:

And first, they taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was coeval with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known; for him, therefore, He prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated stands in need of nothing.

Theophilus of Antioch, “Theophilus to Autolycus,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 97–98.

Second, he does engage in some allegorizing of the text. This is not in contrast to the “literal” meaning, which he takes as a given, but as an additional layer of meaning. For example:

And we say that the world resembles the sea. For as the sea, if it had not had the influx and supply of the rivers and fountains to nourish it, would long since have been parched by reason of its saltness; so also the world, if it had not had the law of God and the prophets flowing and welling up sweetness, and compassion, and righteousness, and the doctrine of the holy commandments of God, would long ere now have come to ruin, by reason of the wickedness and sin which abound in it. And as in the sea there are islands, some of them habitable, and well-watered, and fruitful, with havens and harbours in which the storm-tossed may find refuge,—so God has given to the world which is driven and tempest-tossed by sins, assemblies6—we mean holy churches7—in which survive the doctrines of the truth, as in the island-harbours of good anchorage; and into these run those who desire to be saved, being lovers of the truth, and wishing to escape the wrath and judgment of God. And as, again, there are other islands, rocky and without water, and barren, and infested by wild beasts, and uninhabitable, and serving only to injure navigators and the storm-tossed, on which ships are wrecked, and those driven among them perish,—so there are doctrines of error—I mean heresies8word of truth; but as pirates, when they have filled their vessels,9 drive them on the fore-mentioned places, that they may spoil them: so also it happens in the case of those who err from the truth, that they are all totally ruined by their error.

Theophilus of Antioch,  100. He also sees the period of testing in Paradise as analogous to a Father raising a child:

The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it. For there was nothing else in the fruit than only knowledge; but knowledge is good when one uses it discreetly. But Adam, being yet an infant in age, was on this account as yet unable to receive knowledge worthily. For now, also, when a child is born it is not at once able to eat bread, but is nourished first with milk, and then, with the increment of years, it advances to solid food. Thus, too, would it have been with Adam; for not as one who grudged him, as some suppose, did God command him not to eat of knowledge. But He wished also to make proof of him, whether he was submissive to His commandment. And at the same time He wished man, infant as he was,4 to remain for some time longer simple and sincere. For this is holy, not only with God, but also with men, that in simplicity and guilelessness subjection be yielded to parents. But if it is right that children be subject to parents, how much more to the God and Father of all things? Besides, it is unseemly that children in infancy be wise beyond their years; for as in stature one increases in an orderly progress, so also in wisdom. But as when a law has commanded abstinence from anything, and some one has not obeyed, it is obviously not the law which causes punishment, but the disobedience and transgression;—for a father sometimes enjoins on his own child abstinence from certain things, and when he does not obey the paternal order, he is flogged and punished on account of the disobedience; and in this case the actions themselves are not the [cause of] stripes, but the disobedience procures punishment for him who disobeys;—so also for the first man, disobedience procured his expulsion from Paradise. Not, therefore, as if there were any evil in the tree of knowledge; but from his disobedience did man draw, as from a fountain, labour, pain, grief, and at last fall a prey to death.

Theophilus of Antioch,  104. This probationary period could have resulted in immortality from the beginning, had Adam kept the law of God:

But some one will say to us, Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, Was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God; but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made man free, and with power over himself.1 That, then, which man brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, this God now vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him.2 For as man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption.

Theophilus of Antioch, 105.

We become monsters

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by in Image of God, imago dei, Psychology, Uncategorized

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One big idea unifies all of Nietzsche’s offspring — the Marxists, the Freudians, the French Existentialists, the critical theorists, the Deconstructionists, the queer theorists — and that is the right to self-invention. That is the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on human beings, for we are not clever or strong enough to reinvent ourselves. To the extent we succeed, we become monsters.

David P. Goldman on self-invention

More Observations on the Image of God

02 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Image of God, imago dei, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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Revising and developing my notes on the theology of psychology, with particular emphasis on biblical counseling. One important aspect of any psychological system is its anthropology: what is a human being? The answer to that question is a theological question: psychology as a discipline of observation cannot answer that question.

A critical element of biblical anthropology is that human beings are in the image of God. The discussion of this issue is enormous. Here are three voices on the issue. Biblical Doctrine, John MacArthur, explains there are three basic views as to the doctrine of the image of God:

Three views have been offered in answer to the question of how exactly man is in God’s image: substantive, functional, and relational. First, the substantive view says that the image of God is inherently structural to man it is a characteristic within the makeup of man….

 Second, the functional view asserts at the image of God is something that human beings do….

Third, the relational view claims that relationship is the image of God.

The best view however isn’t the image of God is substantive or structural to man. Function and relationship are the consequences of man being the image of God structurally….

The structure probably consist of the complex qualities and attributes of man that making human. This includes his physical and spiritual components. The image could also be linked to personhood and personality and to the powers to relate and operate.

 

MacArthur anr Biblical Doctrine, pp. 412 – 413.

 

  1. John S. Hammett, in the chapter “Human Nature” in A Theology for the Church, avoids the question of structural, functional or relational:

Despite the paucity of biblical teaching on the image of God, we may draw five biblical parameters. these guidelines do not answer all the questions we have concerning the image of God, but they give us guidelines by which we may evaluate suggested interpretations of the image of God.

Creation in the image of God is affirmed for all persons….

Creation in the image of God involves being like God in some unspecified way….

Creation in the image of God is the basis for human uniqueness and dignity (Gen 9:6; Jas 3:9-10)….

Even after the fall, humans are spoken of as being in the image of God, so the image is not completely lost in the fall. However, it does seem that the image was damaged in the fall, for there are verses that speak of the restoration of the divine image or conformity to the image of Christ as an ongoing process in the Christian life (2 Cor 3:18; Eph. 4:23-24; Col 3:10).

Moreover, since Christ is the perfect image of God (Heb 1:3) and the result of this process of restoration is being fully like Christ (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49; 1 John 3:1-2), we may speak of the image of God as being not only are created design but also our eschatological destiny.

Theology, p. 294.

Bavnick has an extensive discussion of the doctrine, the history of the doctrine and critiques of the various views.  He concludes:

In our treatment of the doctrine of the image of God, then, we must highlight, in accordance with Scripture and the Reformed confession, the idea that a human being does not bear or have the image of God but that he or she is the image of God. As a human being a man is the son, the likeness, or offspring of God (Gen. 1:26; 9:6; Luke 3:38; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9).

Two things are implied in this doctrine. The first is that not something in God—one virtue or perfection or another to the exclusion of still others, nor one person—say, the Son to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit—but that God himself, the entire deity, is the archetype of man. Granted, it has frequently been taught that man has specifically been made in the image of the Son or of the incarnate Christ,72 but there is nothing in Scripture that supports this notion. Scripture repeatedly tells us that humankind was made in the image of God, not that we have been modeled on Christ, but that he was made [human] in our likeness (Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:7–8; Heb. 2:14), and that we, having been conformed to the image of Christ, are now again becoming like God (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:21; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10; 1 John 3:2). It is therefore much better for us to say that the triune being, God, is the archetype of man,73 while at the same time exercising the greatest caution in the psychological exploration of the trinitarian components of man’s being.74

On the other hand, it follows from the doctrine of human creation in the image of God that this image extends to the whole person. Nothing in a human being is excluded from the image of God. While all creatures display vestiges of God, only a human being is the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is truly human, and he is truly and essentially human because, and to the extent that, he is the image of God. Naturally, just as the cosmos is an organism and reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures, so also in man as an organism the image of God comes out more clearly in one part than another, more in the soul than in the body, more in the ethical virtues than in the physical powers. None of this, however, detracts in the least from the truth that the whole person is the image of God. Scripture could not and should not speak of God in a human manner and transfer all human attributes to God, as if God had not first made man totally in his own image. And it is the task of Christian theology to point out this image of God in man’s being in its entirety.

Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 554–555.

So the whole human being is image and likeness of God, in soul and body, in all human faculties, powers, and gifts. Nothing in humanity is excluded from God’s image; it stretches as far as our humanity does and constitutes our humanness. The human is not the divine self but is nevertheless a finite creaturely impression of the divine. All that is in God—his spiritual essence, his virtues and perfections, his immanent self-distinctions, his self-communication and self-revelation in creation—finds its admittedly finite and limited analogy and likeness in humanity

Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 561.

 

What God says of our Identity 

23 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Image of God, imago dei, Preaching

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But his theology of the cross involved the recognition that God sometimes works “under the appearance of opposites.” Thus Luther strove to cultivate in the congregation a faith that rested in confidence on God’s presence and promise even when his strength was being perfected in their weakness, as God had told Paul he was doing in the apostle’s life (2 Cor. 12:9). In this sermon on Mark 5 Luther, in both temporal and spiritual dimensions of life, poses the contrast of what human beings see in the world and what Christ sees. David had seen himself as a poor shepherd, and so had the world, but Christ viewed him as a king. “All of you who have faith in me regard yourselves as poor sinners, but I regard you as precious saints; I regard you as like the angels. I simply speak not more than a single word, and sin, death, sickness have to yield, and righteousness, life, and health come in their place. The way I speak determines how things are; they cannot be otherwise.” 

Robert Kolb, Luther and the Stories of God, Chapter 3

More on Denying God’s Existence and Yet Oddly Confirming God’s Law

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Image of God, imago dei, Uncategorized, Van Til

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This quotation from Van Til adds some nuance on the question of whether one must acknowledge God’s existence to be subject to God’s moral law:

After the fall, therefore, all men seek to suppress this truth, fixed in their being about themselves. They are opposed to God. This is the biblical teaching on human depravity. If we are to present the truth of the Christian religion to men we must take them where they are. They are: a) creatures made in God’s image, surrounded by a world that reveals in its every fact God’s power and divinity. Their antithesis to God can never be metaphysical. They can never be anything but image bearers of God. They can never escape facing God in the universe about them in their own constitution. Their antithesis to God is therefore an ethical one; b) because of God’s common grace, this ethical antithesis to God on the part of the sinner is restrained, and thereby the creative forces of man receive the opportunity of constructive effort. In this world the sinner does many ‘good’ things. He is honest. He helps to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow men. He ‘keeps’ the moral law. Therefore the ‘antithesis’ besides being ethical rather than metaphysical, is limited in a second way. It is one of principle, not one of full expression. If the natural man fully expressed himself as he is in terms of the principle of ethical hostility to God that dwells in his soul, he would be a veritable devil. Obviously he is nothing of the sort. He is not at all as ‘bad as he may be.’

Strange, Daniel; Strange, Daniel (2015-02-03). Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions (p. 92). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Quoting: Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 45. (By the way, I am finding Dr. Daniel Strange’s book quite useful.

What is man that you ….

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Christology, Hebrews, Image of God, imago dei, Job, Justification, Psalms, Romans, Soteriology, Uncategorized

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Job 7 and Psalm 8 present a paradoxical contrast in the meaning of man before God: Why does God care for man.  Job asks why God cares so deeply as to even be concerned with men’s sin:

17 What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him,
18 visit him every morning and test him every moment?
19 How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?
21 Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.

Job 7:17-21

This sort of question, in the minds of some, has led to a religious impulse which creates a god who simply forgives because this god is merciful — God may be concerned about extremely wicked men (typically this requires genocide or at least extreme viciousness), but God does not care about my “small” sins.

And while this sort of religion appears to be very comforting it comes it at a very high cost. First, it comes at the cost of God: God must give up justice to simply overlook sin without redress: Imagine a judge hearing the case of someone who without question committed a gross injustice against you. The criminal is guilty, you sense your need for justice and the judge simply shows “mercy” and less the bad-guy go. Your anger would rightly rise against this situation, because “mercy” comes at the cost of justice.

What sort of a god could sacrifice justice and still be a just God?

Second, as Job notes, to simply overlook sin without more, comes at the expense of humanity. Job asks, why concern yourself with my sin? I’m not that important.

And so you see, that a merely “merciful” god regards a degradation of God and of humanity. God must be unjust and we must be without value to pull off such a “forgiveness”. It is not surprising then that our civic religion of an avuncular god who simply forgives comes at the cost of human dignity.

Scripture however presents a perfectly holy God. It also places human beings as alone bearing the image of God. For humans to be of such worth requires that God have concern for our sin: because human beings are representing God (whether good or ill).

A high view of God and leads to a high view of the value of human beings — at the very same moment, producing the humility of wonder and love:

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

Psalm 8:4-5  This resolution of the conflict takes place in Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews specifically brings these strands together, God, man, sin as follows;

6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?
7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor,
8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:6-9. There in the place of Jesus, God greatness and justice gather up the sinfulness of humanity and restore human beings to a place of honor.

This is how Paul makes the same argument, from a slightly different vantage:

 

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21–26.

Book Review: Identity and Idolatry The image of God and its inversion

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Book Review, Culture, Idolatry, imago dei, Thesis, Uncategorized

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Identity and Idolatry
The image of God and its inversion
Richard Lints
172 page IVP, 2015

In the first chapter, Lints makes clear that this discussion about the imago Dei will not concern “human nature”, but rather is an “account about how life is lived as reflections of God and as reflected in our communal contexts” (24). “The imago Dei captures this transitory reality – as an image is contingent upon the object for its identity, so the imago Dei is contingent upon God for its identity” (29).

In this respect, Lints’ thesis matches closely with the aphorism of Beale’s title, “We Become What We Worship.”

Chapter 2, “A Strange Bridge” works out the concept of “image” in some detail. The last paragraph of the chapter has this wonderful sentence, “Image bearers are not intrinsically idolatrous though they are doxologically fragile” (42).

The next two chapters begin to work the biblical text in greater detail as it concerns “image.” Being made as the image of God, we are hardwired, if you will to reflect: “Humans are made in such a way as to yearn for something beyond themselves that grants them significance, most notably the God who made them as his image” (62).

This thread will be developed in the second half of the book, when Lints turns to the question of
idolatry.

There is profound irony in idolatry. Human beings will become conformed to what we worship — we are built to worship and reflect (which are aspects of the same process). Now an idol is an image created by human desire coupled with the promise of fulfillment:

It was because the fragility of the human heart disposed it to yearn for security on its own terms. This disposition was made all the more dangerous when it was underwritten with the power to create gods in their own imagination. This points at the reality that idolatry was not in the first instance a cognitive error (believing in other gods) but a fallacy of the heart (yearning for control) (86).

It is a god who can be controlled and made fulfill and meet the human desire: and yet, that desire cannot be met by the idol, because the cannot do anything. And since those who make idols “become like them” (Ps. 115:8; interesting that Lints does not interact with this verse and only once makes mention of the Psalm; however, the concept is everywhere present in his discussion of idolatry), the idol worshipper becomes captivated by and transformed in unfulfilled desire:

Paul is insistent that idols will not deliver on their promises. Instead they create consuming passions in which there is deliverance. This inverted state is surprising from one angle-how foolish humans are to suppose they can have a god on their own terms. And yet the inversion produces an entirely predictable consequence — abandoning God results in an identity crisis wherein one’s safety and significance become endlessly fragile (111).
Chapter 7, “The rise of suspicion: the religious criticism of religion” is a brilliant summation of 19th philosophy its critique of Christianity — a critique which still plays in the broader culture. I am honestly amazed at Lints ability to aptly and fairly summarize Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche in such a small space.I have lectured on these most of these men and know who hard they are to summarize in any cogent and fair manner.

The final chapter is good solid advice for Christians.

There are enormous gaps in my discussion of this book — because I want you to buy it and use it.

Logic as a Person

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Christology, Image of God, imago dei, Thinking, Trinity, Vern Poythress, Wisdom

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Dr. Poythress in his recent book Logic contends that logic’s existence reveals God and exists because of God. He first ties together two proposition: (1) God is Lord over all (Psalm 103:19); and (2) “[L]ogic is not created. Philosophers have maintained that it ‘just is'” (63). If we try to place God over logic, then logic somehow is a/the Lord of God.

Poythress notes three aspects of the character of God. “First, God is dependable and faithful in his character” (63). Thus God by nature holds a logical consistency with whom he is. He is a God who “cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Second, God alone is the Creator — nothing stands above him and nothing stands independently of him. Therefore, his consistency and attributes must be part of who he is: the logical coherence of his being provides the substance of logic. Third, human beings are made in the image of God and think God’s thoughts after God. He quotes Van Til, to the effect that we “think God’s thoughts after Him analogically” (64).

Our logic reflects God’s logic. Logic, then, is an aspect of God’s mind. Logic is universal among all human beings in all cultures, because there is one God, and we are all made in the image of God….Whenever we reason, we are imitating God whether we recognize it or not. The only alternative is insanity, which means the disintegration of the image God in us. 64.

Thus, human logical enterprises an attempt to describe this aspect of God’s character.

Poythress goes on to contend that logic is a personal, not an impersonal, attirbute. He notes that logic is an aspect of human thought — it is not the activity of rocks or trees. Moreover, logic is embedded within language and moves through language. The Bible further teaches that creation itself is the result of rational speech, that is, logical enterprise.

He then notes the manner in which the Bible makes plain this rational speech of God is the Word of God, the Logos:

Logic, we said, is personal. Now it becomes more evident why it is personal. It not only personal, but a person, namely, the Word of God. But we should be careful to underline the the fact that this person, the second person of the Trinity, is much richer than our human conceptions, either of logic or of reason or of language as a whole. He is infinite, an infinite person, with all the richness of God himself: “for in him [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). Thus logic in a narrow sense is only one aspect of who God is. (71).

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